Russia

Final Project "Russia"

Axia University of University of Phoenix

SCI Environmental Science

Siri (Nimal) Wickramaratne

Stephanie Kyler

August 19, 2007

Final Project "Russia"

It is estimated at least one in five Russian babies born today is in poor health. In Moscow, three out of four expectant mothers have some pathology in their pregnancy. Males in one Arctic village are not expected to live beyond their early 40s; women in this village usually do not live beyond their late 40s (Russia , 2007). Children and adults throughout Russia suffer from respiratory and intestinal disorders at a rate many times higher than elsewhere in the world.

Although such grim statistics are in part a result of poor nutrition, inadequate medical care, cigarette smoking, and alcoholism, extensive environmental degradation remains a primary culprit. As the largest of the former Soviet Union's 15 republics, Russia helped direct a massive military industrial machine that stretched from the Baltics to Central Asia, the Arctic, Siberia, and Eastern Europe (Environmental Problems). That Soviet legacy continues to threaten the environment and health of hundreds of millions of people as well as future generations.

Russia's leading environmental concern is water pollution. Municipalities are the main source of pollution, followed by industry and agriculture. Russian and foreign experts estimate that less than one-half of Russia's population has access to safe drinking water (Russia , 2007). Sixty-nine percent of the nation's wastewater treatment systems lack sufficient capacity (RussiaWater Quality). Only 13 percent of reported wastewater flows were treated to meet Russia's relatively high-quality water standards in 2006, the latest period for which we have reporting. According to the Russian Government, "practically all" of the water courses in the Volga watershed, an area that covers two-thirds of European Russia do not meet Russian standards (Environmental Problems).

Russia's three military plutonium production sites, Chelyabinsk (often referred to as Mayak) in the southern Urals region, and Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk in southwestern Siberia, have caused extensive contamination of Russian waterways (Russia , 2007). Highly radioactive waste from Chelyabinsk was dumped into a nearby river system from 1948 to 1951 and has migrated over 1,500 kilometers to the Arctic Ocean (RussiaWater Quality). Other waste is stored in open ponds at Chelyabinsk and is seeping into a nearby river.

Water pollution from multiple sources is likely to increase during the next decade as independent households and the services sector place additional burdens on multiple sewage systems (RussiaWater Quality). When industrial production recovers, wastewater discharges also will reverse their downward trend. Meanwhile, funding shortages will constrain operations, maintenance, and new investment in drinking water, sewerage, and wastewater treatment systems. They also will limit any efforts to deal with nuclear contamination of waterways and drinking water supplies (Russia , 2007).

Poor air quality is almost as serious a problem as water pollution. In 2005 over 200 cities in Russia often exceeded the levels prescribed by Russian health standards for annual concentrations of at least one pollutant, according to a Russian government report. Eight cities exceeded health standards for three or more pollutants, and they did so by at least a factor of 10. In comparison, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency, air pollution levels in the Los Angeles area, which has the worst overall air quality in the United States, rarely exceed US standards--which are similar to Russia's by a factor of more than 1.5. Although industries continue to pollute the air, emissions from cars and trucks--lead, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides--cause the majority of air pollution (TED Case Studies: Russia Air Pollution, 2007).

Air quality is likely to worsen as the number of vehicles, many of which are aging and lack adequate pollution control increases. From 2000 to 2005, car registrations increased nationwide by 176 percent (Russia , 2007). The number of cars in Moscow during the same period jumped 250 percent to 2 million (Kramer, A. E. , 2005). Fuel quality will add to the problem, only half the gasoline produced in Russia is unleaded and, in heavily congested areas, lead concentrations often reach at least four times the US air quality standard (TED Case Studies: Russia Air Pollution, 2007).

Siberia's large forest, the taiga, accounts for approximately one-fifth of the world's total forested land and contains about one-half of the world's evergreen forest (Russian pleads for end to deforestation, 2002). Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian government, desperate for investment, has invited outside timber companies to log the taiga forest. Russia has loosened its control over the timber and wood-products industries in the economy, which had been state, run monopolies under the old Soviet Union. This has raised concern among scientists and environmentalists about the impact of taiga deforestation on global warming. Russian forests are disappearing at a rate of 12 million hectares a year (Russian pleads for end to deforestation, 2002).

If carbon dioxide and other heat trapping gases continue to build up in the atmosphere at the present rate, the earth's average temperature will rise by three to eight degrees Fahrenheit in the next century (Kramer, A. E. , 2005). Since the forest continuously removes carbon gases from the atmosphere and replaces them with oxygen, preserving the taiga may be important to controlling the greenhouse effect. Conversely, destruction of the forest could accelerate global warming (Russian pleads for end to deforestation, 2002).

There are other problems causing deforestation in the taiga. Pollution, in the form of acid rain, is emitted from Russia's nickel, aluminum and lead smelting plants (Russian pleads for end to deforestation, 2002). Many of Siberia's rivers are damaged when timber harvesters sink logs during transport. This occurs when harvesters try to transport logs down rivers to processing plants which often results in flooding of thousands of miles of forest land. Because most of Russia's natural resources of oil, natural gas, coal, and diamonds are found under the forest, the taiga is depleted in order to mine these minerals. Since 90 percent of the